


Chimes Like Tinfoil

by Keemax



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: M/M, Mai is mentioned - Freeform, Ren is a not-so-subtle wizard in case it's not too obvious, also: warnings for implied suicidal thought, loosely based on the wizard perfume ad event from SL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21613318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keemax/pseuds/Keemax
Summary: In which Tokiya, the brilliant yet slowly sinking detective, has his token "oh no he's hot" moment when he's supposed to be following up on a report for suspicious behavior.Or: Ren seduces Tokiya with magic roses and honey.
Relationships: Hijirikawa Masato & Ichinose Tokiya, Ichinose Tokiya/Jinguuji Ren
Kudos: 11
Collections: Uta No Prince Sama FlashBang 2019





	Chimes Like Tinfoil

**Author's Note:**

> The paired artwork for this piece was done by @xLunaChii on twitter!

Tokiya decides that the most obnoxious item is the windchime on the door.

It’s not the hat levitating in the display window, held by a wire he can’t seem to spot but knows must be there, and not the jars packed like misshaped bricks of playdough in the shelving unit behind the counter, boasting too-bright colours and too-little organisational thought. It’s not the dust, and it’s not even that hideous, all-consuming, green velvet cape the shopkeeper has wrapped around their figure.

It’s the sound of ping-pong ball rattling furiously inside of tin can. He’d stopped and looked up immediately, only to spot what looked like the corpse of a tarantula suspended from the ceiling in just the right place to be swayed by the opening of the shop door. A bundle of thin, hollowed twigs and some kind of aluminium bead between them.

“That’s not for sale, I’m afraid.” Says a voice. It’s low and smooth and Tokiya doesn’t even bother to look in its direction.

“I wasn’t interested.”

But then he turns, locks eyes with the speaker, and immediately forgets about the opened envelope stuffed into his inside jacket pocket.

The man’s torso is bent in a graceful curve over the glass countertop, elbows propped upon it and fingers threaded together under his chin. One eyebrow is arched, the slant of his nose and the set of his jaw are the sanded curves of marble from the Italian Renaissance, where Tokiya is a mere sculptors apprentice, aching to trace those lines with his fingertips, to marvel at the craftsmanship.

The thought comes unbidden: _he wants those elbows on either side of his hips_. Tokiya almost chokes, the skin over his cheekbones tightening with heat.

Later, when Masato asks him about the merchandise sample he had been supposed to bring back with him, Tokiya will think of this image. He will think about strawberry blonde hair falling down in wisps in front of eyes that reflect all the colours of the stained-glass lights above them. He will think about the poise of a mouth colored in amusement, the top row of teeth biting _just so_ into the full, pinked flesh of the lower lip.

He will then talk about the windchime and its atrocious noise. Masato will roll his eyes.

For now, he stops in the entrance, letting the door catch and hold onto his foot. He opens his mouth only to close it again, scanning what he could between the mess of synthetic peacock feathers and wallpaper patterned waistcoat.

A name-tag is pinned to the man’s blouse - it gleams white under the store lights like the artificial shine from a toothpaste commercial. It claims this is Jinguji Ren, who, he would assume, should be the owner of the establishment. Unless the reason the sign out front is covered was because of a dispute in management.

He vaguely remembered what it looked like from a photograph that one of the rookie officers submitted as part of their report for the end of last month. The man was twenty-five at most - probably fresh out the academy – gangly and thin, and well under his arrest quota. But even so, he’d puffed out his chest as best he could in the sagging fabric of his uniform shirt and slid an opened envelope across Masato’s desk.

_New location of suspicious intent_ he’d said, spine straight and eyes pinned to the wall above Masato’s left shoulder. _Shopkeeper tried to sell me a ‘love potion’. No, I didn’t buy it. No, I didn’t bring a dog with me_.

The shopkeeper – Ren – waves at him. Evidently he’d asked a question and Tokiya’s response had been a blank stare. _Charming, surely_.

“I asked if you needed any assistance,” says Ren, an upwards lilt in his voice bordering on laughter, “Is there something specific that you’re looking for?”

Tokiya shakes his head. Ren’s eyebrow raises further.

He supposed he could’ve stood there, if he wanted, while the Ren’s gaze stained the back of his grey, ironed trench coat. He could’ve, maybe for twenty minutes or so.

He could’ve - and could very well see himself doing just so – stood in front of that gnarled, creaking shelving unit on right wall and watched the reflections of the shoppers passing on the street in the two hundred-in-something little glass bottles that were clustered there. His face would stiffen and set in that bland, blank expression the chief praised him for. It would be just the same as if he had instead decided to stay in his office, staring out at the unmoving square cut-out of the station parking lot beyond his window.

Here, his hands would roll in pockets, flexing against his keys instead of the handle of the top drawer in his desk, where his revolver and badge rattled together silently, whispering in his head.

Tokiya rolled his jaw.

“No,” he says, “I was looking for the bakery. Excuse me.”

The door swings shut behind him and the toothless chitter of the windchime bounces around inside his skull.

***

He returns a week later. The clean, simple, half-finished investigation report had looked infinitely better than the other paperwork, all marred with grey-scale head-shots, forensic reports, and possible suspects of interest.

The windchime is gone, but Ren’s voice calls out from somewhere in the back of the store to compensate. It gives Tokiya the opportunity to walk around a little.

The first thing he does is wave his hand in the air above the hat in the window display and then, when he finds no string holding it in place, does the same beneath it. _Still nothing_.

He stares at it, then turns to the rest of the store.

There is a general sense of organisation – that is to say that most items are kept in lit display cabinets folded, fit and flush against every wall of the room, and many mirrors hanging over them. There are bottles. Mostly bottles. More bottles than you’d find in a small pharmacy and in many more colors than white.

There are rugs, coiled like scrolls in a basket in the corner. There is an assortment of jewelry glittering under the glass counter where the cash register sits. There’s a small bushel of incense reeds sitting in a smaller pot of oil next to said cash register.

He finds himself crouched in front of a lower cabinet. This one seemed to contain all manner of preservatives, from lemon to ginger and gooseberry, but the labels seem to have some kind of strange symbol on them. He squints at a jar of manuka honey with a small iridescent bubble next to the name.

“That changes a person’s mood, you know”

Tokiya very nearly jumps. His bones jolt in place and he straightens immediately. He turns to Ren only to find the man standing with his arms crossed and an amused tilt to his mouth.

From this angle, caught between by both the lights from the cabinets and that of which is reflected by the mirrors, his eyes are dark. Tokiya almost can’t seem to find the pupil.

But not as dark as Masato’s. Nowhere near as dark as Masato’s had been that morning. Not when his pupils had been blown wider than Tokiya had ever seen them, his mouth fallen open and his knuckles parched white gripping the tray in his hands. At the time, Tokiya’s brain had slowly, numbly, categorised Masato’s expression as something resembling shock, but the thought had only stayed for a brief moment. Tokiya’s brain had other, more important things to do and had settled back into the comfortable buzz of inactivity as he’d shifted to continue staring out of his office window.

Later, when colder, fresher air was passing into his lungs after Masato – still shaking but no longer shouting - had sent him out with the grocery list, Tokiya’s brain prodded at answer to his assistant’s odd behaviour.

It had been the first time Masato had seen him like that; knees crossed, one hand propped under his jaw and the other fiddling with safety guard on his revolver, clicking it on, then off, then on again to the steady rhythm of whatever had been playing over the radio. The muzzle warm and wet where it sat on the bed of his tongue.

And Masato’s entrance had surprised him. He’d involuntarily squeezed the trigger and if the _click_ it made rang like a shot inside his own skull, then there was no doubt Masato must’ve heard it from where he stood.

The safety had been flicked on, but, with Masato’s voice still ringing in his ears, he’d wondered what he would’ve done if it hadn’t.

_Nothing, most likely_ , given where the muzzle had been pointed. But what about Masato, forced to witness a scene he wasn’t trained for?

Tokiya looks back down at the jar.

“It has an added substance that increases serotonin production?”

Ren shrugs. The upwards glow on his face looks almost like candlelight, and Tokiya wonders if he’d ever considered dimming the lights in the store permanently. Just let the low-hanging cabinet lights cast that fire-like glow on his skin twenty-four seven.

“Maybe?” Ren says, “That’s just what the spell does. Wizards just learn the incantation and cast it. Warlocks are the ones who actually know what they’re doing.”

Tokiya blinks.

_Sure. Whatever you say._

He buys the jar.

Just as he’s leaving, about to pick the pastel paper bag off the counter, Ren holds up a finger. Then he winks, pulls out a single orange rose from his sleeve, and tucks it next to the jar. Tokiya’s flush only makes his smile grow wider.

He doesn’t see Ren slip anything else into the bag. Not until get he gets back.

Next to the jar of honey, he later finds a small cloth bundle. It contains the missing windchime from the store and a note that simply read “ _It likes you!_ ”

Tokiya ends up hanging it from the handle on his desk drawer.

***

The honey had disappeared within a week. The empty jar is deposited just outside Tokiya’s office door with no note and no fingerprints – not that he’d bothered to check.

Masato had looked up from his work only to say that he’d loaned it out to one of the other officers a day or two before and had forgotten to ask after it later. Masato had been forgetting at lot of things over the past few days.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d left too many things at his old desk when he relocated to work out of Tokiya’s office for the foreseeable future, or maybe the walls of Tokiya’s office had somehow absorbed the contents of his paperwork, and were bleeding out the same energy onto whoever sat inside the room for too long.

Neither had said anything about the sudden change, but Masato would always stop and glare each time Tokiya’s hand wandered towards his top drawer. Towards his badge and revolver.

So Tokiya starts to flick the windchime instead. The sound becomes more bearable. It starts to sound like an actual bell.

So Tokiya starts to admit when he’s getting too tired.

So Tokiya starts to take breaks more often.

So Tokiya ends up buying more honey.

At first, it’s only one jar. Just his. Then meek faces start peering in from the door frame and ask to put some in their coffee, so one jar turns into two. Two into three, three into six, six into twelve.

Twelve turns into a monthly order, into stocking the station pantry, into giving one to Masato for keeping his mouth shut and another for him to take home to his little sister Mai. It turns into giving one to the chief and keeping one for himself. One that sits on his desk, one that he dips his finger into when his brain starts to numb and when ink starts to smear.

So Tokiya starts to put honey in his mouth instead of his revolver.

And winter turns to spring, and spring into summer.

Ren starts having his monthly order ready in a basket behind the counter and asks him to return the jars, if he can, so he can reuse them. Ren also starts putting his hair into a ponytail because of the heat and Tokiya often thinks about running his hands through it, if it would feel as silky as it looked, coiled around his finger.

If it would be as soft as the petals on the flowers Ren would also leave inside the basket.

Once, Tokiya comes in earlier than usual, before the flowers are there, and Ren, spotting him, picks up a pen that had been left on the counter.

He twirled it in his hands once, twice, three times before it disappears. Tokiya stared down at the violet rose in Ren’s grasp.

He’d taken it slowly, numbly, from Ren’s outstretched fingers.

Later, he’d given it a place amongst his pencil holder. Sometimes, instead of staring out his window he stared at the flower instead, idly flicking the windchime hanging from the drawer handle. The notes were much clearer now, like muffled sleigh bells in a passing breeze.

After another three weeks he stops flicking them altogether.

***

He’d tried to be subtle about it, as subtle as Ren had been all those weeks ago, but Ren finds the little cloth bundle immediately as if it’d simply gravitated to his fingers amidst the clattering of empty jars inside the basket.

Both of his eyebrows raise, and Tokiya can almost see the question pursing on his lip.

“I don’t need it anymore.”

Ren’s eyes shift to the rubber band around Tokiya’s wrist, a thin line of tan stark against the pale skin. A slightly thicker line of pale pink marring the tone beneath it, peeking out on either side form where it sat.

Masato had looked at it with a similar air, but his brow had been furrowed and his shoulders stiff.

It was probably because the first time he’d seen it was the first time Tokiya used it. Hands on either side of his face, elbows propped on the table and shoulders hunched inward. The paperwork in front of his eyes had started to blur, grey splotches like spiders crawling across the sheets. He didn’t think about the revolver in his desk drawer. He’d forgotten Masato was sitting across from him when he hooked one finger under the band, pulled it back, and let it snap hard against his skin.

Masato had jumped, clouds of shock forming creases on his face. Then they cleared, and something softer had taken its place. Both had resumed their work, not a single word spoken between them.

Ren looks down again at the windchime. The bronze shimmered softly under the shop lights.

He scratches his chin.

“That’s not exactly how it works, Ichi. These kind of objects don’t exactly-” he waves his hand in a vague circular motion “-like being passed around.”

“I’m not passing it around, I’m returning it.”

“…Wasn’t really mine to begin with, it was more of a squatter.” He holds up his hand just as Tokiya opens his mouth and looks inside the basket again. When he turns back his own mouth is twisting, threatening to stretch upwards at the corners, “Is that why you came in today with only half your order?”

Tokiya’s jaw clicks closed. There’s the faintest sensation of blood beginning to gather and spread across the base of his neck. He rolls his shoulders, looks up at the ceiling, then to the door at the side. Fishes in the back of his mind for the words he’d picked earlier, but can’t seem to find the box he’d put them in.

“I suppose. I suppose I may have wanted to ask a question. Of sorts.”

“Oh?” Ren makes a show of propping his elbow on the counter and reaches behind the side of the cash register to retrieve a coffee cup, movements slowed and pronounced. “Then by all means: _what doth thine noble officer wish to ask this eve_?”

“I just.” Tokiya wets his lower lip, looks at his own reflection on the glass counter top, “I just thought. I thought you might want to come see our office. One day. This week.”

Ren snorts, ducks his head away from his mug just as his lips brush the rim, mouth curling into his usual slanted smile.

“Your _office_? Really?”

Tokiya nods – a sharp, brief movement. If Ren can see the heat creeping from his neck to his ears, he didn’t comment on it. For once.

Instead he _tsks_ under his breath, looks down at his cup, then closes his eyes and drinks from it. There’s a series of soft, jagged inhales that echo inside its empty cavity as his laughter is muted on the ceramic shell. He pulls away, smacks his lips, and raises an eyebrow, “That’s a pretty terrible way to ask someone on a date, Ichi.”

Tokiya bristles. His hands push further into his coat pocket, pulling the fabric tight against his shoulders. Tight like the heated skin clinging to his cheekbones.

“ _Who’s to say_ ,” he starts, “That I ever _intended_ -“

“But alright then – guess I’ll take the guided tour.” He looks at Tokiya from the corner of his eye, “And then _after that_ we’ll go get dinner. Sound good?”

_Yeah,_ Tokiya swallows too much around his words and his voice cracks too much at the ends, _Yeah it did_.

Ren puts the mug down on the glass next to the cash register and winks at him, one hand on his hip. Then he leans over and slides the little cloth bundle back in front of Tokiya. Pats it once. Looks him right in the eye. “But this? This is yours. Couldn’t take it back even if I wanted to. You know how these little guys are.”

He doesn’t, wouldn’t have walked in here with it if he did, but he tucks it back into his pocket all the same. It rings a little with the movement – the soft clink of a single drop of water, the lilting laugh of crystal.

Later, Ren will laugh even as he kisses him, fingertips tracing Tokiya’s jaw under the arch in the doorway of that Italian restaurant on the corner of Maine and Jefferson. Mouth curling into a smile even as it moulded to the shape of Tokiya’s own, the barest edge of teeth scraping his lower lip.

But for now Ren settles for laughing as he plucks one of the incense sticks from the bushel and twirls it between his fingers. A moment later it becomes a rose; a rich, velveteen scarlet you’d find between the pages of one of Mai’s fairytales.

He tucks it into Tokiya’s breast pocket, then leans back to admire his work.

“I have to say; matches the colour of your face _beautifully_.”

Tokiya just scowls.


End file.
